meticulously

American

[muh-tik-yuh-luhs-lee] / məˈtɪk yə ləs li /

adverb

in a way that shows extreme care about minute details; in a precise and thorough way, sometimes to an excessive degree.

He'd had collections of various kinds as a kid, each of them meticulously sorted and, yes, even inventoried.

Other Word Forms

unmeticulously adverb

Etymology

Origin of meticulously

meticulous ( def. ) + -ly

Explanation

If you clean your house meticulously, you take plenty of time and scour every single nook and cranny, maybe even behind the oven and under the doormat. Meticulous means extremely careful and thorough, so if you do something meticulously, you are painstaking about doing it perfectly. Someone who would never leave her house with an un-ironed t-shirt or a thread hanging loose is someone who dresses meticulously. If your town historian documents every event, from births to remodeled living rooms, then she does her job meticulously, maybe a little too meticulously.

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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

“Situated behind tall gates for maximum privacy, this stunning property has been meticulously restored with attention to detail and craftsmanship rarely found today,” the listing describes.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 17, 2026

"Astronauts are screened very meticulously before going to space but with commercial flights, these people are paying to go so the medical screening will likely be much less," she says.

From BBC • Apr. 14, 2026

Some because they’re in the process of building their AI carefully and meticulously, but others because they don’t know what they’re doing with AI.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 10, 2026

By the end of his college sophomore year, he was meticulously cataloging them.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026

Bram’s Honda Civic is old and comfy and meticulously neat, and he cranks up the heat as soon as we get inside.

From "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" by Becky Albertalli

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023